Holding Broken Glass

Summary:
It's been years since Bella and Edward were married, and Bella has been a vampire for decades. They return to Forks after about 55 years. They've been there peacefully for a few months. The wolves - if there even are any left - don't seem to know of their return. But when a choice is presented to the Cullens, what will their decision be? A more important question; How will it affect them? What trouble could it bring? Rated Teen for safety only, as my language may get coarse. Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns. I don't. =(

Notes:

1. The simplest choices

I had been a vampire for 55 years now, happily married to Edward. We had recently moved back to Forks, as everyone we had once known was probably dead by now. Alice was busy gabbing to me and Rosalie about a dress she had seen in her most recent trip to the mall. I was about to drop ‘dead’ of boredom, when Alice stopped dead in the middle of her story. Jasper and Edward zoomed over to us, Edward watching the vision by reading Alice’s mind, Jasper holding onto Alice.

Alice came back to her senses, her eyes wide with shock. In a speed only vampires can manage, she had grabbed a phone and called Carlisle. “Carlisle, I just saw… Oh, they’re already there? ...Okay, we’ll all be right over.”

Esme was next to us in an instant, Emmett a second or two behind her, and we all made our way to the cars. I hopped into my rarely used Audi coupe, Edward in the front passenger seat. Alice and Jasper in her new Porsche, Esme in the new Lexus, and Rosalie and Emmett in her new Ferrari convertible. We made our way out of the driveway and we all sped through the dead night to the hospital. We all made our way to the ER, where Carlisle waited, looking worried.

He was also already alone. Never a good sign.

“That bad?” Emmett asked, looking at the two covered beds.

Carlisle only nodded. “They were in a car wreck,” he explained, “the girl had been driving and had swerved off the road and into a ditch, and no,” he said, seeing the looks on some of our faces, “she didn’t show any signs of being drunk, she just swerved off.”

He sighed and pulled the covers off the beds.

{Jasper’s Point of View}

Esme and Bella gasped, and I sank to my knees, the combined feelings of everyone in the room too much. I felt Alice’s arm around my shoulders. The girl had deep stitched-up cuts on every inch of exposed skin on her arm; her head had a bandage that was soaked with blood wrapped completely around it. Her arm was hanging at an unnatural angle, as if it had popped out and reset badly.

The boy was as good as dead, even though I could still here an extremely faint heartbeat from his direction. How did I know he was doomed? He didn’t feel anything at all, despite the fact that his ribs were pressed against his skin, which was almost about to rip open from the pressure.

Carlisle spoke again. “The boy is near death even now.” He said, taking another glance at the monitor, “The girl may make it, but the odds are too small. That’s why I called you all here. To make a decision. Do we change this girl? Or do we let her go?”

“Let her live.” Esme.

“No.” Rosalie, not showing any emotion.

“No.” I agreed with her.

“Yes.” Bella.

“No.” Edward.

“Yes.” Alice.

“Yes.” Emmett.

“I think we should change her.” Carlisle.

I didn’t want her to be changed. Because buried beneath all that pain from the girl, was worry and suffering over the boy next to her. Something that wasn’t a brotherly-sisterly love, but more. Something I had only felt when around Edward and Bella, Emmett and Rosalie, Esme and Carlisle, and myself and Alice. What would happen if the girl awoke, and found her love dead? I had seen what had happened to Edward when he left Bella, to Bella, when the memory of Edward leaving her came up.

I didn’t want to do that to anyone. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe they were only high school sweethearts, something that would be bound to end before college started. But maybe I wasn’t wrong; maybe we had just hurt a girl that would have to live with it forever.

{Edward’s Point of View}

Reading Jasper’s mind, I wasn’t all too surprised his motives for not changing her were the same as mine. The girl had an odd mind, something I imagined Bella’s mind would be like. She was able to understand things and their depth, and her mind itself had many parts and layers. And beneath the many layers of pain and suffering, was her worrying for the boy. I was so into her thoughts I didn’t realize that Bella was speaking until she gently nudged my arm.

“What are their names?” She asked, and everyone turned to me.

“Kalli and Josh.” I replied, smiling slightly.

“Okay, so if we’re going to change her, shouldn’t we do it soon?” Rosalie’s hard voice brought everyone back to harsh reality. Suddenly; my mind received one less thought process.

Josh was dead. Jasper felt it too, and grimaced. The rest gazed up at the monitors, and saw his heart had stopped, his brain shut down, and his lungs no longer taking in air. There was a collective sigh before Carlisle shooed us out so he could change her. He had Bella remain to help, as she could resist the scent of human blood better than any other I’ve ever seen. We all turned to one another. We needed to plan what to do after Kalli was changed.

Three days later

{Bella’s Point of View}

Edward and Jasper suddenly looked upstairs.

“She’s awake,” said Edward quietly. Esme went up first, and we could hear the following conversation before we followed. We had put her in the last empty room, and put an extra bed in the room for her to lie on.

“Where am I? Shouldn’t I be in the ER after that car wreck? Though I do feel fine…” Kalli asked, clearly extremely confused.

“Well yes, but more than that. Why we’re gorgeous is really what I'm getting at,” Alice said brightly.

“Then get to it already! Stop beating around the bush.” She said, throwing up her arms in exasperation.

“Well, we’re vampires,” Rosalie said.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Kalli actually laughed. “Well, I thank you for a straight answer, but – come on – vampires?”

No one else laughed or smiled. The girl’s smile eventually faded, “You’re serious?” She asked, looking at us all, “So if I were to go get some garlic right now, would you run away?”

And now, to her surprise, Edward and I laughed. “No,” he said, “and you don’t kill us with a stake through the heart, we can go out in the sun without shriveling up, we can’t turn into bats, and we don’t sleep in coffins.”

“But we do have super strength and speed,” I said, smiling a little at her.

“And some of us even have abilities beyond that,” Alice provided.

“Like, Edward can read minds, I can feel and give you a certain emotion, Alice can see the future, and Bella can make people trip. Oh, and Emmett has even more strength than a normal vampire,” Jasper said.

“You read minds?” Kalli asked Edward who nodded. Kalli looked at her feet in embarrassment, making me wonder what she had been thinking. Kalli then looked Emmett up and down. “I can see that. But make people trip?” She asked, turning to me with a smile.

“Well,” I said, grinning sheepishly, “I was sort of a bit clumsy as a human.”

“Sort of?” Edward asked, smiling as he turned to me.

“A bit?” Asked Alice, arching her brow at me.

“Okay!” I said, throwing my hands up, “A lot clumsy!”

“You mean very clumsy,” Kalli corrected with a smile.

We all turned to look at her, and she shuffled her feet as she realized she had corrected us. “Grammar is a tad of a … obsession I guess you could say.” She provided, smiling. We laughed, and I noticed Kalli’s smile slip, to be replaced with one of worry.

“You never told me where Josh was.” She said, looking around at us all.

We all stopped laughing. I turned to Edward, who turned to Rose, who turned to Alice, who turned to Emmett, who turned to Jasper, who turned to Carlisle, who turned to Esme.

“He wasn’t as fortunate as you.” Esme said softly, her gaze never wandering from Kalli’s face.

“As in…he’s dead,” we nodded, “Dead dead? As in not vampire dead when my heart’s not beating and I don’t need to breathe?”

We nodded again.

“Oh.” And before any of us could move, she was gone. I saw the window was open when it hadn’t been a millisecond ago.

“Were you that fast as a newborn, Edward?” Carlisle asked, a little stunned.

Edward shook his head.

Jasper only sighed, “This is why I didn’t want to change her.”

“Well, we can’t just let her go, what happens if she comes across human blood?” Alice asked, and everyone instantly became more alert.

“I’ll go,” Edward said, and ran out of the house.

We watched him disappear as a blur into the woods surrounding the house. Esme sighed sadly and went to sit on the couch and watch the news. Carlisle joined her, and the rest of my family went to their business.

But I only waited patiently at the door, waiting for my husband to return.